Page 36 of Time for You
Ellie came out of her room in her bathrobe, yawning. “The hell is so funny this early?” she asked with good humor.
Henry was laughing too, now, and held up the book as if that were an explanation.
“He—he thought—he thought it was—” Daphne stammered, gasping for air.
Ellie looked at the book and wrinkled her nose. “Aww, did Henry think we had dinosaurs in the twenty-first century?”
“Again—you’ve been to the moon,” he protested, still laughing.
“Fair enough,” she said, shoving her hair back from her face with her hand. “Come on, Henry, I’ll show you how to make scrambled eggs.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daphne and Brittany were sitting on the couch, listlessly scrolling through half a dozen streaming services, unable to decide what to watch, when Vibol walked in like a sitcom character from the 1990s, without even bothering to knock.
“Michelle is home from her shift soon,” he announced without preamble.
“You should knock—we could have been naked,” Daphne called without looking back.
“Good thing you weren’t, or Henry might have had an aneurysm.”
“It would have been challenging, yes,” Henry said, following Vibol in, and that got Daphne craning her neck. Vibol had agreed to take Henry out shopping, and—well, Vibol had good taste, that was clear. Henry looked appealing in new jeans and a button-down shirt, and for a second he looked at her and she looked at him until her ears started to feel like they were burning.
“What about this documentary about—” Brittany leaned forward, squinting through her glasses. “Mormon cheerleaders who started a cult?”
“Oh, I want to watch that, for sure,” Ellie said as she came out of her room. “But why are the guys here?”
“Michelle’s off soon,” Vibol repeated.
The rest of the women exchanged a look. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Um, we’re all going to be around and off work for at least twenty-four hours? Isn’t that like, unprecedented?”
“Probably,” Ellie said. She pulled a bag of pretzels from the pantry and passed them wordlessly to Vibol after taking a handful. “What do you have in mind?”
“As tempting as, uh, cult-leader cheerleaders is, I was thinking something more exciting.”
“Hard to think of something more exciting than that,” Brittany said.
“I was thinking we should go out,” Vibol said. “Maybe Benny’s?”
Brittany screwed up her face. “Eww, Benny’s?”
“Did you have a better suggestion?”
“Speakeasy?” Ellie offered.
“Michelle hates Speakeasy,” Vibol pointed out.
“Do we know if she wants to come?” Daphne asked. “Isn’t she still at the hospital?”
Vibol sniffed. “I know what Michelle likes, and shehatesSpeakeasy.”
The women exchanged another look, and this time, Henry joined in. “Well, where does she want to go?” Daphne asked.
“She likes Pour and Blanche’s.”
“Blanche’s has a good DJ on Saturdays,” Ellie said, taking the pretzels back from Vibol.
